Wednesday, January 02, 2013

U.S. Schools becoming Fascist institutions?

Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California, a bottomless fountain of foolishness, has proposed a measure that would permit governors to deploy National Guard troops to provide "security" at government-run schools.

"Is it not part of the national defense to make sure that your children are safe?" Boxer asked during a Capitol Hill press conference in the misguided belief that this content-free trope somehow constituted compelling wisdom.

She blithely stated that her proposal wouldn’t be a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act (which was supposed to prevent the domestic use of the military for the purpose of law enforcement) because it would allow governors to re-purpose troops who are already being used for drug interdiction operations. That is to say, the militarization of schools wouldn’t constitute a new Posse Comitatus violation, but rather expand on an existing one.

Boxer’s proposal to militarize the schools could have been taken directly from "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012," a terrifyingly prescient essay published twenty years ago in Parameters, the journal of the U.S. Army War College by military historian Charles J. Dunlap. This glimpse of a dystopian future takes the form of a long letter written by an officer awaiting execution as a traitor to the junta that has seized control over the United States in the wake of military disasters abroad and socio-economic turmoil at home.

"It wasn't any single cause that led us to this point," writes the condemned patriot to a friend. "It was instead a combination of several different developments, the beginnings of which were evident in 1992." Rather than de-mobilizing at the end of the Cold War, the ruling establishment expanded the military’s mission overseas and made it an even more pervasive presence at home.

Military personnel became "an adjunct to all police forces in the country," the officer recalls; social and economic problems were redefined as "national security" issues and brought under the military's area of responsibility. This is how uniformed military personnel became ubiquitous: People became accustomed to the sight of "uniformed military personnel patrolling their neighborhood.... Even the youngest citizens were co-opted.... [We have] an entire generation of young people who have grown up comfortable with the sight of military personnel patrolling their streets and teaching in their classrooms."

There is a sense in which Boxer’s proposal is redundant, since armed "warriors" are already deployed in countless schools nation-wide: They are called "resource officers," but they are taught to perceive themselves as front-line troops on a combat footing.

"You've got to be a one-man fighting force," self-styled counter-terrorism "expert" John Giduck exhorted police officers at the 2007 National Conference of School Resource Officers in Orlando, Florida. "You've got to have enough guns, and ammunition and body armor to stay alive.... You should be walking around in schools every day in complete tactical equipment, with semi-automatic weapons.... You can no longer afford to think of yourselves as peace officers.... You must think of yourself [sic] as soldiers in a war because we're going to ask you to act like soldiers." (Emphasis added.)

"Resource Officers" are not present for the protection of children; their mission is to intimidate them, and – with increasing frequency – make criminals out of them. A detailed story published by The Guardian of London points out that in 2010, police deployed in public schools issued roughly 300,000 "class C misdemeanor" citations to school children, most of them for trivial disruptive behavior, such as "inappropriate" dress and excessive use of perfume. Those infractions can result in fines, community service, or even time behind bars – and an arrest record that can ruin the student’s future educational and employment prospects. This is a splendid illustration of the "school-to-prison pipeline" in operation.

Although horrific mass shootings like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary School are vanishingly rare, "lock-down" drills in which SWAT teams conduct training exercises involving hostage or terrorism scenarios are increasingly commonplace. Many of those "hostage rescue" drills are better described as hostage-taking exercises, since they are used as pretexts for warrantless searches of lockers and student property.

Vista Grande High School in Casa Grande, Arizona, held a lock-down drug sweep on October 31. As had happened before in other schools across the country, the students were confined to their classrooms, then led in small groups to another room where they were forced to line up against a wall and be searched with the help of drug-sniffing dogs.

This exercise introduced a new element: Among the four law enforcement agencies involved in the search was a group of prison guards employed by the Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest for-profit prison contractor.

Notes Caroline Isaacs of the Tucson office of the American Friends Service Committee: "To invite for-profit prison guards to conduct law enforcement actions in a high school is perhaps the most direct expression of the `schools-to-prison pipeline’ I’ve ever seen." Clearly, the similarities between government-run schools and prisons are not limited to architecture. Posting National Guard troops around government indoctrination centers, as Boxer proposes, would destroy any residual pretense that there is a material distinction between "schools" and "prisons" in what is becoming an undisguised garrison state.

Like most contemporary liberals, Boxer is a passionate militarist who swaddles her enthusiasm for lethal force in rhetoric about compassion and equality. She can call for armed troops to patrol "gun-free" school zones without perceiving any contradiction, because she simply assumes that the rest of us exist only to serve the interests of the political class and its enforcement arm. It is their privilege to compel, and our duty to submit to whatever they choose to inflict upon us. This is what Boxer and her comrades have in mind when they invoke "national security."

British school that spent £500,000 giving its pupils iPads admits that HALF are now broken

The old story: What is "free" is not respected

A school which gave out iPads to every pupil in hope of improving their education has admitted that just a year later half the costly devices have been broken.

Honywood Community Science School dished out iPad2 tablets to its 1,200 pupils a year ago, at vast cost to the taxpayer.

Despite warnings that children would not be able to look after the fragile computer tablet, the school in Coggeshall, Essex, allowed children to take the device outside the classroom, playground and street and home at evenings and weekends.

It was hoped that the iPads would be a useful learning tool, as well as keep the school up to pace with international competitors embracing the technology in the classroom.

But after just one year, more than four in ten of the iPads had been sent off for repair, after being knocked, dropped or scratched. Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal 489 had to be replaced after being found to be beyond repair. About a fifth of those sent for repair – 112 – had to be sent back more than once.

Pupils said in some of the younger classes, around half the class had broken their tablet at least once, and some as many as three times. Despite the threat of confiscation after three tablets, ultimately none were taken away from pupils.

The school argues that since introducing the devices, it has seen improvements in pupil discipline, attendance, and exam results.

Apple, the manufacturer of iPads, is said to be aggressively targeting the school market and at the time headteachers were accused of ‘falling for a gimmick’.

Honywood, which gained academy status last year, giving it greater control over its budget, gave out the tablets last September, at an estimated cost of £500,000, or £400 per iPad. Parents were asked only to pay £50 towards insuring the device.

At the time headteacher Simon Mason said the investment represented 2.3 per cent of the school’s budget, and did not want to publicise the scheme for fear of putting the safety of pupils at risk.

On the latest figures, he said: ‘The breakage rate resulted from using a recommended case which was insufficiently robust. Since replacing cases this year, breakage has fallen to 1.2 per cent.’

He added: ‘Exam results at the end of our first year of using tablets were the highest in the school’s 48-year history. ‘Attendance has risen and we’ve seen our lowest rate of fixed-term exclusions for ten years.’

Peter Inson, a former school headmaster and a commentator on education, said the breakages were hardly surprising. He said: ‘In my view you cannot expect children of 11 and 12 to be responsible for a delicate gadget.

‘They are still running around using jumpers for goal- posts and being generally rambunctious.’

Handing out equipment without expecting the parents to contribute financially only increases the likelihood of something being lost or damaged, he added.

Matthew Sinclair, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘Buying technology for schools has to be about educational results, not just trying to appear cutting edge for the sake of it.

‘Not many parents would trust their 11-year-old to look after such an expensive piece of kit so it is wrong for the school to do so just because taxpayers are picking up the bill.’

PARENTS will pay an extra $355 to send their child to a private school next year as fees rise by an average 5.5 per cent.

Across the state, fees at independent schools will rise by between 3 and 10.5 per cent, while more schools are charging over $20,000 - or more than $500 a week - for Year 12.

Schools say the fee increases are a result of the rising cost of providing education, driven by changes to federal and state education policies and programs, utilities and teacher salaries.

Association of Independent Schools of SA chief executive Garry Le Duff said the fee increases were consistent with past years and rising costs common to all schools.

He said a survey of member schools showed the significant cost drivers were teacher salaries and training, increasing water and electricity charges, the introduction of a new curriculum, compliance requirements and the replacement of outdated technology.

"Thoughtful and considered increases in fees ensure continuous improvement in education to meet parents' expectations and attract and retain the best available teaching talent," he said.

Mr Le Duff said the survey also showed the majority of independent schools expected to increase or maintain their enrolments next year and in the long-term. Many schools, he said, were at their enrolment capacity.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that over the 12 months to the September quarter 2012, inflation in the education sector rose 6.1 per cent. The main contributor to the rise was secondary education, up 7.7 per cent.

A spokeswoman for St Peter's College said the school was focused on reducing costs where possible - but the cost of education was continuing to rise faster than general inflation due to changes in federal and state education policies.

Catholic Education SA director Paul Sharkey said fee increases at Catholic schools had been kept to a minimum but would be similar to those at independent schools.

"People are conscious of the need to be quite careful to keep any increases to the absolute minimum at the moment," he said. "I haven't heard of any others freezing fees like Rostrevor."

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Background

Primarily covering events in Australia, the U.K. and the USA -- where the follies are sadly similar.

The only qualification you really need for any job is: "Can you do it?"

Particularly in academe, Leftism is motivated by a feeling of superiority, a feeling that they know best. But how fragile that claim clearly is when they do so much to suppress expression of conservative ideas. Academic Leftists, despite their pretensions, cannot withstand open debate about ideas. In those circumstances, their pretenses are contemptible. I suspect that they are mostly aware of the vulnerability of their arguments but just NEED to feel superior

"The two most important questions in a society are: Who teaches our children? What are they teaching them?" - Plato

Keynes did get some things right. His comment on education seems positively prophetic: "Education is the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.”

"If you are able to compose sentences in Latin you will never write a dud sentence in English." -- Boris Johnson

"Common core" and its Australian equivalent was a good idea that was hijacked by the Left in an effort to make it "Leftist core". That made it "Rejected core"

TERMINOLOGY: The English "A Level" exam is roughly equivalent to a U.S. High School diploma. Rather confusingly, you can get As, Bs or Cs in your "A Level" results. Entrance to the better universities normally requires several As in your "A Levels".

The BIGGEST confusion in British terminology, however, surrounds use of the term "public school". Traditionally, a public school was where people who were rich but not rich enough to afford private tutors sent their kids. So a British public school is a fee-paying school. It is what Americans or Australians would call a private school. Brits are however aware of the confusion this causes benighted non-Brits so these days often in the media use "Independent" where once they would have used "public". The term for a taxpayer-supported school in Britain is a State school, but there are several varieties of those. The most common (and deplorable) type of State school is a "Comprehensive"

MORE TERMINOLOGY: Many of my posts mention the situation in Australia. Unlike the USA and Britain, there is virtually no local input into education in Australia. Education is mostly a State government responsibility, though the Feds have a lot of influence (via funding) at the university level. So it may be useful to know the usual abbreviations for the Australian States: QLD (Queensland), NSW (New South Wales), WA (Western Australia), VIC (Victoria), TAS (Tasmania), SA (South Australia).

There were two brothers from a famous family. One did very well at school while the other was a duffer. Which one went on the be acclaimed as the "Greatest Briton"? It was the duffer: Winston Churchill.

Another true modern parable: I have twin stepdaughters who are both attractive and exceptionally good-natured young women. I adore both of them. One got a university degree and the other was an abject failure at High School. One now works as a routine government clerk and is rather struggling financially. The other is extraordinarily highly paid and has an impressive property portfolio. Guess which one went to university? It was the former.

The above was written a couple of years ago and both women have moved on since then. The advantage to the "uneducated" one persists, however. She is living what many would see as a dream.

The current Left-inspired practice of going to great lengths to shield students from experience of failure and to tell students only good things about themselves is an appalling preparation for life. In adulthood, the vast majority of people are going to have to reconcile themselves to mundane jobs and no more than mediocrity in achievement. Illusions of themselves as "special" are going to be sorely disappointed

On June 6, 1944, a large number of young men charged ashore at Normandy beaches into a high probability of injury or death. Now, a large number of young people need safe spaces in case they might hear something that they don't like.

Perhaps it's some comfort that the idea of shielding kids from failure and having only "winners" is futile anyhow. When my son was about 3 years old he came bursting into the living room, threw himself down on the couch and burst into tears. When I asked what was wrong he said: "I can't always win!". The problem was that we had started him out on educational computer games where persistence only is needed to "win". But he had then started to play "real" computer games -- shootem-ups and the like. And you CAN lose in such games -- which he had just realized and become frustrated by. The upset lasted all of about 10 minutes, however and he has been happily playing computer games ever since. He also now has a First Class Honours degree in mathematics and is socially very pleasant. "Losing" certainly did not hurt him.

Even the famous Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci (and the world's most famous Sardine) was a deep opponent of "progressive" educational methods. He wrote: "The most paradoxical aspect is that this new type of school is advocated as being democratic, while in fact it is destined not merely to perpetuate social differences, but to crystallise them." He rightly saw that "progressive" methods were no help to the poor

"Secretary [of Education] Bennett makes, I think, an interesting analogy. He says that if you serve a child a rotten hamburger in America, Federal, State, and local agencies will investigate you, summon you, close you down, whatever. But if you provide a child with a rotten education, nothing happens, except that you're liable to be given more money to do it with." -- Ronald Reagan

I am an atheist of Protestant background who sent his son to Catholic schools. Why did I do that? Because I do not personally feel threatened by religion and I think Christianity is a generally good influence. I also felt that religion is a major part of life and that my son should therefore have a good introduction to it. He enjoyed his religion lessons but seems to have acquired minimal convictions from them.

Why have Leftist educators so relentlessly and so long opposed the teaching of phonics as the path to literacy when that opposition has been so enormously destructive of the education of so many? It is because of their addiction to simplistic explanations of everything (as in saying that Islamic hostility is caused by "poverty" -- even though Osama bin Laden is a billionaire!). And the relationship between letters and sounds in English is anything but simple compared to the beautifully simple but very unhelpful formula "look and learn".

For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

"Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts. Nothing else will ever be of service to them ... Stick to Facts, sir!" So spake Mr Gradgrind, Dickens's dismal schoolteacher in Hard Times, published 1854. Mr Gradgrind was undoubtedly too narrow but the opposite extreme -- no facts -- would seem equally bad and is much closer to us than Mr Gradgrind's ideal

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

A a small quote from the past that helps explain the Leftist dominance of education: "When an opponent says: 'I will not come over to your side,' I calmly say, 'Your child belongs to us already. You will pass on. Your descendents, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time, they will know nothing else but this new community.'." Quote from Adolf Hitler. In a speech on 6th November 1933

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learned much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

Discipline: With their love of simple generalizations, this will be Greek to Leftists but I see an important role for discipline in education DESPITE the fact that my father never laid a hand on me once in my entire life nor have I ever laid a hand on my son in his entire life. The plain fact is that people are DIFFERENT, not equal and some kids will not behave themselves in response to persuasion alone. In such cases, realism requires that they be MADE to behave by whatever means that works -- not necessarily for their own benefit but certainly for the benefit of others whose opportunities they disrupt and destroy.

Popper in "Against Big Words": "Every intellectual has a very special responsibility. He has the privilege and the opportunity of studying. In return, he owes it to his fellow men (or 'to society') to represent the results of his study as simply, clearly and modestly as he can. The worst thing that intellectuals can do - the cardinal sin - is to try to set themselves up as great prophets vis-à-vis their fellow men and to impress them with puzzling philosophies. Anyone who cannot speak simply and clearly should say nothing and continue to work until he can do so."

Many newspaper articles are reproduced in full on this blog despite copyright claims attached to them. I believe that such reproductions here are protected by the "fair use" provisions of copyright law. Fair use is a legal doctrine that recognises that the monopoly rights protected by copyright laws are not absolute. The doctrine holds that, when someone uses a creative work in way that does not hurt the market for the original work and advances a public purpose - such as education or scholarship - it might be considered "fair" and not infringing.

Comments above from Brisbane, Australia by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former teacher at both High School and university level

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here